I find it hilarious that five minutes into my stay in Taiwan, things already got bullshitty. I was trying to change my Canadian dollars into NT. I handed over my money to some bureaucrat at the Bank of Taiwan.
He looked at my bills and started phoning people. He informed me that he wasn’t going to change one of my 5$ bills because it didn’t have a security feature. He said that it was too old.
Too old?
This money is good in Canada, why won’t you change it?
Too old, you stupid foreigner!
Too old!
I started swearing and asked for him to change the rest of it. I didn’t really give a shit and this was a good time to lose my temper as any, since I’d been traveling for over 26 hours.
One the way home, no one helped me with by bags. I found that strange. In Canada, cab drivers and bus drivers will help you with your bags. Here in Taiwan, they don’t.
I almost lost my temper again when the cab driver just waited for me to take my bags out of his cab. He was just sitting in his seat.
WTF was that all about.
Ah well, the joys of being back in Taiwan!
Seriously, it’s not that bad, but I just found it funny that right off the bat, things go sideways. That’s Taiwan for you.
I'm 
Eeps. That’s terrible, but I’m still really glad you’re back!
John and I have run into currency problems before too. When we were in Indonesia, they didn’t want to accept any of John’s American bills because they were too old. They wouldn’t give any reasons. We found out later that some places are really iffy about taking bills that are too old, too worn or folded. We avoid this problem by making sure we ask for new bills at the bank, which are then placed in a bill-fold to avoid creasing and crumpling. It’s a complete pain in the butt.
I’m quite surprised you ran into this problem in Taiwan though.